There was an amusing story in the New York Times Magazine. It was about a Japanese woman who was recounting a meeting with a man whom she abruptly described using the English word "jerk." The person writing the story asked her how to say "jerk" in Japanese.

"There's no such word," the woman answered helplessly. "We have to use [the English word] jerk.''" It's not as if there are no jerks in Japan. But the Japanese language is just not made for sniping at people. Guess what Japanese drivers say to each other after a car accident. They say: "I'm so sorry." The Japanese language is simply not designed for hurling invective at one another.

Take the vicious Japanese insult "kisama," which is deeply offensive. It means: "Your honorable self." That's right. Instead of using all kinds of obscenities, the Japanese insult each other by frowning and growling: "Your honorable self."

There is one exception. One of the meanest things one Japanese child can say to another is: "Omaeno kaachan debeso." That means: "Your mom's belly button sticks out." This has no deep Freudian meaning: it simply means that your mother is uncouth and ugly. That's the meanest that Japanese children can be linguistically.

Their Chinese cousins also have this built-in limitation on personal insults. The Chinese dismiss their enemies as "tuzaizi," or "baby bunny rabbits." It's quite charming to think of a furious man ranting in Chinese and then coming up with an epithet like "You baby bunny rabbit!"